infinite regress

Claire let out a small yawn. It was still early in the morning and normally she would be in bed, but both her dogs wanted to go out for a walk. She didn’t grab any gloves and her hands started to feel the chill of the cold morning. “Alright!” she called to Artemis and Apollo, “Let’s go back home.” Both dogs perked up and ran to her side. Without fail Apollo slipped as he ran and tumbled toward her. Claire couldn’t help, but laugh. She hurried down the streets wanting to get back into her warm house.

“Are you here for the tour or what? You’re in luck. Our very own Ross called out for the day, so I’m stuck reading this shit off of a clipboard. It’s free and no one signed up – so let’s go before we get some shitty field trip class from the local middle school. You know what I hate more than this job? You guessed it: seventh graders.”

acebordeaux‌:

“I know, I know,” Emrys replied with a light chuckle as his sister lectured him. “But I’m pretty sure if I held him correctly I’d lose an eye.” He held the cat out to his sister’s stretched out arms, knowing the cat would be in safe hands with her. They had often bonded over their shared love of the animal. “I don’t think he liked being untangled from the brambles, even if I was helping, so he might be kinder to you.” 

It was the highlight of her day when he met her after college. The walk after class was brisk, attempting to somewhat navigate them away from the cold. Ace flung her scarf over her shoulder, pulling a cigarette out of her box and holding it out to him; a ritual after almost a year. “Are we going to get a Christmas tree?” She asked her boyfriend with a half smirk, swiftly lighting her cigarette before passing it over to him. “I feel as though it’d really make the apartment look less like a library that happens to have a bed and a kitchen in it.”

The meet n greets never ended these days. He’d even had a PR event visiting the street cleaning union thanking them for their diligent service to clean up the streets. Then had been a local soup kitchen to talk about coming together as all New Yorkers did during a crisis, especially during the holidays. Now he was visiting a few of the local hospitals, talking to people that had been effected by the rain. Showing his face and making sure that he was present and in the public eye as the people’s Mayor. He preferred these personal moments where he could talk to the citizens of the city. Even with the two armed bodyguards looming not too far away. He flashed the person that approached his trademark smile, bright and inviting, reaching his hand out to shake theirs, “Hey, how you doing?” 

“No need to look at me like that,” Emrys commented as he emerged from the brambles holding a cat out in front of him. Emrys often rescued cats he found on the streets. He did his best to recuse all animals, but he had always been particularly fond of cats. Unfortunately, not all cats wanted to be rescued or realised that Emrys was only trying to help. “If this cat had bitten and scratched you as many times as it has me you’d be holding them like this too.” The cat had been badly tangled in the brambles, and Emrys had received numerous injuries whilst trying to free the stray. 

Jack: I was hoping you forgot.

Ace: As if I would.

Ace: Sorry I left before I could tell you in person. I had class.

          The initial onslaught of rain had left many on edge, the crimson essence of such liquid proving to be unnerving at best Julian taking to the streets in typical fashion between each break between the madness. Any drop that had touched calloused fingertips burned and he had been attempting to diverge home for the sake of his girlfriend who never dared to pick up her phone at the right damned time. All the same, many New Yorkers had continued to be enraptured within their own superficial bubbles, Julian snagging somebody practically by the collar as the tainted storm began to hail down once more, dragging them unceremoniously beneath a bodega overhang. “Be out of place to make a joke about being envious of raining cats and dogs right?” Breath was huffed out at the other, a gauche greeting consider he had near yanked them from their hazardous spot on the street. 

acebordeaux‌: 

“There’s no getting rid of the goddamn thing, is there?” Jack sighed playfully. “I tried leaving windows open, the front door - but nope, every fucking morning there it is, prodding at my chest the second I wake up.” His anxiety dissipated at the memory, or maybe it was just her touch that calmed him. He remained close to her as they sat on the sofa, visibly relieved by the return to normalcy. He felt exhausted, and realized this was the first moment he’d had to genuinely rest, or even begin to relax. Though he never truly felt safe anywhere, nothing came close to how he felt in this apartment. Her apartment? Their apartment? He wasn’t sure anymore, he didn’t want to question it. “Is that an invitation to stay?” he asked carefully, more concerned with this than whatever meteorological phenomenon was occurring outside. “It’s fucking weird, yeah, but I’m not gonna stop living my fucking life because of it. We’ve been through literal plagues. This shit is nothing.”

acebordeaux‌:

“I might have spent my time on more significant things than sampling all the junk food America thought of. If I had, I would still have been working on it.” And he wish he had been joking. Yet, even with his long and immortal life he hadn’t picked up on any bad habits. Except for the alcohol, but honestly, that had been a thing when they had both been human. And that would be his only defence. 

acebordeaux‌:

“I’m not most people and you know that.” She was right, she wasn’t. That was why this worked, he reminded himself. Even in his seemingly mortal life, Jack had always operated from a place of instinct, running on first impressions and gut feelings. His instincts were useless here, useless with her. He couldn’t anticipate her subtle shifts in affect, in physicality. He couldn’t read her. In the rare moments that he could, he was still uncertain if his reading could be trusted. She made him feel exposed, yet for some reason he couldn’t find it within himself to retreat, not fully. Apprehension still clawed at the back of his mind, despite the assurance from his heart that yes, this was safe. She was safety itself. He could feel it again the moment she kissed him. “I take it that means you’re gonna forgive my sorry ass?” It was intended as a joke, muttered into her shoulder as he placed another kiss against her collarbone, but he couldn’t fight the anxiety that crept in just below the surface. Self-conscious, he avoided her eyes, instead focusing on details. The corner of her mouth. The hem of her sleeve. He loosely threaded his fingers with hers, unwilling to commit fully to the effort to keep her close, despite how much he wanted to. Forgiveness usually necessitated an apology, but this was the best he could do. He hated himself for it. 

acebordeaux ;

          Such chagrin reaction radiated off of Legacy, her perturbation a nettlesome twinge in his side as she seemed near astounded by his irrational fit of pique; his vexation stemming from near inherent petulance. Noah’s own derailment perhaps stemmed from his own lack of understanding to such visceral torment he near conjured up from years of voiding himself of any moral culpability, shoving such idiosyncratic spurs of mania under a plume of glib taciturnity. Jaw clenched under the sharp distress Ace seemed to be afflicted by now, her bolt to the door hardly neglected; Noah standing in tandem to snag blood from it’s respected place in the fridge. A hand was outstretched, two blood bags snagged between blanch digits, “Just take them, Ace. Take as many as you need if you must.” His laconic retort supplied a summary of his own inherent dejection, one which stemmed from his own lack to encompass all in which he could not vocalize, stepping back to let Ace upkeep her granted absence in his life. 

          “You are way too anxious for your own good,” a vexed laugh was breathed out, offering a shake of his head in tandem, “It’s just your average flu season coming to a head. No one’s being poisoned or whatever other conspiracy theory you’ve conjured up in your head.” Caleb made a face before he raised his drink in the essence of offering the other one for their obvious surface troubles. 

acebordeaux‌:

“Yeah but sometimes,” he shrugged, staring at the laces in his shoes, “sometimes you say shit you don’t mean.” Another opportunity for her to rescind all previous declarations of love. Another chance for her to escape, free and clear, unscathed by the ruin Jack would inevitably lay to whatever road he’d drag her down. He winced as she said it again, as though the unfamiliarity of the phrase were a physical attack. Still, he silently wished for her to say it again, for the minor reassurance of that word on her lips. “Most people who love me end up hating me sooner or later,” he muttered, and it was clear in his voice that he believed it. His gaze flickered back up to the girl as she continued, face contorting in confusion as she insulted herself. “Ace - no,” he sighed, wishing for a fleeting moment that their perspectives might be reversed, that he could show her how he saw her, how she really was. “Stop. You’re everything.” He couldn’t conceal his discomfort, a sense of foolishness always seemed to encircle him on the rare occasions when he was forthright and forthcoming. He knew she needed to hear it, that was more important than his comfort. It was only when he was standing before her that he realized he’d risen, and crossed to her. “I don’t give a fuck if you think that’s a load of shit. You’re everything. You always have been.” And he reached out, at last, tucking a few stray strands of hair back behind her ear, thumb trailing along her jawline. It was the closest he could come to an admission of just how much he’d missed her. His skin felt electrified, having craved the contact for every moment of each day they had been apart. He could not function without her. He did not want to try. But his mouth wouldn’t form the words necessary to express this, wouldn’t form any words at all, in fact. His fingers hovered just above her skin for a long moment, before he withdrew, self-conscious as though he’d committed some unspeakable offense, or revealed an embarrassing weakness, simply by touching her. He took another drag.